Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-22

pooled roads to tax the products of in
dustry in this country, and that limit is
fouad when to tax higher will stop pro-
duction and transportation. How much
will given product bear in the way OF
tax for transportation and leave pit
lance for the producer so as to keep him
at work producing3 There is no limita-
ton, as things now stand, upon the
power of pooled roads to tax the COM
merce Of this country except such as is
found in that proposition. There is no
redress, no appeal, no remedy unless
congress acts positively, aftirmatively and
theoretically.
The railroads are pooled throughout
the country, North, South, East and
West. There are great pools like that
of the more than forty trunk-lines with
headquarters in New York, and there
are smaller pools like that in Texas, in
which ! am reliably informed the Hous-
ton and Texas Central Railroad and the
Texas and Pacific road, both IN the hands
of receivers appointed by the federal
courts, officers of the court administer
ing and running the roads presumably
under the direction of the court, in def
ance and contempt of the constitution
and laws of Texas, which forbid such
combinations, are parties. These pools
are operative only where there are COM
peting roads. Their object is to break
down and destroy competition. Wher-
ever only one road is found there is no
competition. Then that one road is su-
preme, and may fix It's own rates to suit
itself. The territory belongs to that
road, and is out of the jurisdiction of the
pool.
The pool takes care of itself and COM
bine5 to destroy competition and keep up
rates wherever there is competition, but
when there is none it leaves the single
road to make its rates as high as it
pleases. They are all for the corpora
tions and nothing for the people Mr..
Albert Fink, the head and chief, orpresi-
dent, of the eat New York pool, who Is
generally admitted to be the ablest man
in America in railroad affairs, in one of
his arguments before the house commit
tee on commerce, admitted the illegality
of pooling, in this language: "The first
step to this end (speaking of pooling,
should be to legalize the management of
railroad property under this plan, and to
abandon the antiquated notion that
government or combination, as it is
called, of this kind is against public pol
ICY"
In this connection l will observe that l
am informed in note from the chief of
the bureau of statistics that there were
on the lst day of January, 1887, 1854
railroad stations in the United States, of
which PTS are junction points, that is,
are points where there is more than one
i {nfI rrba
there is but one railroad. These figures
will give you some idea of the relative
proportion of competing and non-compet-
ing points.
1t is through these determinations be
tween persons and localities that a few
firms obtain control amounting almost
to monopoly over the grain trade, the
livestock and dressed-meat trade, the
oil trade and other lines of trade, with
power to depress prices while the prod
ucts are in the hands of the producers,
and after they are bought up to send up
prices,
The producers are first robbed by the
low prices, and the consumers afterward
by high prices, the great manipulators,
nearly always secretly in partnership with
leading men of the railroad management,
reaping vast and inordinate gains. This
power to discriminate, to excite the hopes
of men and communities on one side and
their fears on the other, backed by unlim-
tied amounts Of money which they wiring
at pleasure from the people, with the best
legal and other talent of the country at
their command, is q standing menace to
free government, AID should not be toler-
ated for one moment among free people.
Free from all restraints of lew, respon-
sible to nobody as they are now, and are
seeking TO continue, by the most desner-
ate efforts to defeat this bill, the dom
nation of corporate power must be
broken now, or its admitted mastery in
many states Of this Union now will ex
tend over the whole country. It can not
be otherwise if the power remains with
them as it exists now, at pleasure, t.
build up and pull down the prosperity Of
communities and individuals, pouring
wealth into the laps of some and visiting
others with bankruptcy and ruin. The di-
rect tendency of this bill, and especially
of the long and short-haul clause, will
be to decentraliZe the wealth of the
country by taking away the opportunities
for illegitimate speculation and diffusing
the benefits of railroad transportation
more equally among all the people Of all
sections of the country instead of concen-
trating them as is now done in few To-
calities at the expense and to the sacri-
fee of all others.
Railroads are in their nature essen
TALLY monopolis.ic under the freest pos
sible system of competition. Competition
such as obtains between merchants, me-
chanlcs, traders, and others, which regu-
lates prices, is not possible in its fullest
sense among railroads. They exclude all
other methods of carrying. The vast
amounts of capital required to build
and maintain them, and the large areas of
territory necessary to support them, and
over which they are supreme in all mat
tiers of transportation and commerce, eX-
clude the numbers which in other cases
are necessary to promote active competi-
ton, while their terrorizing influence
over those whose business is within their
power-their power to punish enemies
and reward friends-creates such mo-
nopoly as should not be permitted to ex-
ist except under the regulating control
and active, vigiiant supervision of the
government for the protection of the
rights OF the citizen.
The states are powerless. Congress
alone can respond to the great popular
demand for relief. The repeated passage
through the house of the well-known Rea
hill rnuob rnnrn ra6ipas surta